Question: What do Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, Pratt & Lambert, Auto-Owners Insurance, and Britton Marketing & Design Group have in common? Answer: Design Features for February and March!

Last month, I recapped what the BMDG team created for our 2016 Design Features, so this is our first official installment for 2017. This year, we are still creating desktops, but they are going to be a little more evergreen. There may be a calendar involved, but there will always be a desktop. The months of February and March come courtesy of Jenny Emerick, art director, and Tracy Hoot, senior production artist, who teamed up to create some pretty awesome work.

Some impressive stuff can be created with a little paper and glue, and a healthy dose of creativity and patience.

These two have known each other for 20 years and have worked together, off and on, for 19 of those. Tracy was on our product development team for her first few years at BMDG, and now she works with Jenny on one of our design teams. They have worked on projects for clients such as Vera Bradley, Peter Millar, the Art Institute of Chicago, Sherwin-Williams Diversified Brands, and Fruit of the Loom.

Our Design Features in 2017 have one goal: bring a 3-D element to the blog. For Jenny and Tracy’s submission they have tackled the world of paper layering and quilling. Quilling is an art form that uses paper that is rolled, formed into shapes, and then affixed to some sort of surface. As you will see, some impressive stuff can be created with a little paper and glue, and a healthy dose of creativity and patience.

Together they created six designs made out of paper and glue. That’s it. It’s remarkable, if you ask me. This month, we are showing three iconic brands, and next month we’ll feature BMDG and two of our own clients. Here we go!

Coca-Cola

Of the three designs this month, this was the one that Jenny and Tracy felt was the most successful. ”It is very detailed, and there is a really nice sense of motion as well as a great use of color,” Tracy said.

“I like the Coke design because it combines the cut paper and paper-quilling,” Jenny said. “The quilling worked really nicely for the pop—or soda, if you are not from Indiana—spilling out of the bottle.”

If you look closely at some of the in-progress shots, you can see the layers of cut paper creating the logo, glass bottle, and brown pop/soda. As I was writing this blog, one of our social media managers walked past and was shocked that this was all made of paper. Every bit, even the gray on the cap, is paper. We both feel pretty creatively inadequate right now, but it’s worth it.

Nike

On the surface, this looks like a computer-rendered design, but in actuality each shape is cut and layered. That’s right. The stitching on the football, the lines on the soccer ball, the stitching on the baseball—all cut-and-layered paper. The depth is a little hard to see in the images. This close-up helps give some extra depth.

Apple

A long, long time ago (1977), in a state pretty far away from us (California), a company named Apple unveiled its second logo, a “rainbow Apple,” designed by Rob Janoff. Today we are familiar with the similar Apple logo, the monochromatic one, which has been in use since 1988. Company cofounder Steve Jobs chose this rainbow design over other options (which included some monochromatic designs) because he felt that it would “humanize the company” and because the Apple II could use color.

Here’s a fun fact about the bite out of the apple: While you’d think it was a play on words (byte vs. bite), in reality it was so the apple wouldn’t be confused with a cherry.

This design uses paper folding with a little layering. I’d say that it still feels accessible, just as Jobs thought back in the ’70s. I asked why they chose this logo, and Tracy said they “tried to choose logos that would have enough color to make them interesting.“

So that’s it! Enjoy this month’s desktops and come back next month. That’s when we’ll be featuring the amazing work for Pratt & Lambert, Auto-Owners Insurance, and BMDG.